The present invention relates to improvements in packaged-article vending machines of the type in which articles yet to be vended are ranked in succession among the turns of a horizontally arranged helix which projects forwardly above a horizontal tray ranked behind a glass front. Upon making payment for and selecting an article to be vended, the customer momentarily pauses and watches, as a motor turns the helix sufficiently to advance the leading packaged article product sufficiently that the leading packaged article falls off the front edge of the tray and descends through a vending space to land in an output chute where it is accessible for retrieval by the customer.
A popular feature of currently available packaged-article product-vending machines of the type referred to above which are snack-vending machines, is having at least one snack-vending column. Typically, this is a comparatively wide column, e.g. 5.5 inches (14 cm) wide, and at least two of the manufacturers which currently sell such machines provide two cooperatingly operated counter-rotatable helices for vending the comparatively large snack packages from such wide columns.
Typically, the product-vending machines which have product impounding and advancing helices arranged in respective side by side columns over a set of vertically spaced horizontally arranged trays, are of modular construction, in the sense that, depending on the sizes of the products which are to be vended, more or fewer trays can be provided, arranged to have more or fewer columns, the narrower columns being served by one helix each, and (in the above-described popular machines), the wider columns each being served by two helices which are arranged to be correspondingly counter-rotated.
Although modularity is considered to be an attractive feature, the need for two motorized helices operating coordinatingly to vend the packages in one wide column is believed not to be an optimal solution, due to the expense and complexity of requiring twice as many motorized helices for vending half as much product. In other words having it cost more to vend less is not the best, if the extra investment in motorized helices can be avoided.
Generally in glass-front vending machines of the motorized helical mechanism type, there is a fixed distance (typically of about 9 inches, 23 cm) between the fronts of the columns and the rear surface of the glass. Some snack manufacturers prefer to vend their products in facially large, tall but thin packages, in order to supply generous amounts of snack food to the customer, to provide a perception of a generous amount, and yet to fit, the packages to the `pockets` defined from above between successive turns of the respective spirals or pair of spirals.
There is a non-trivial likelihood that if a snack product package which is taller than the front-to-rear depthwise dimension of the vend space is vended from a wide column of a glass-front vending machine of the motorized helical mechanism type, particularly one which has one helix per column, happenstantial orientation of the package as the package is conveyed off the front edge of the respective tray and begins its descent in the vend space towards the outlet hopper, will cause the package to tilt over towards the glass front and become hung-up, bridged between the tray and the glass front, tempting the customer to administer rocking motion to the machine to assist delivery of the package, possibly to the detriment of the machine and/or to the customer.